2 more days, 20 more hours of work

and then I'm rockin' in the free world for 15 whole days! Talked to Holly again, a couple of times (once Friday night, when she wasn't doing so great, lots-o-drama, and again last night and she seems much better). Gave her our finalized plans, at least for that part of the trip. Things are coming together nicely. Chris has been great getting stuff together since I've had to work so much lately (of course a "crisis" would hit as I'm about to leave for 15 days).

He's cooked a bunch for the trip and dehydrated it all. Made beef jerky (one batch of the Good Eats recipe and I made some curry jerky which turned out good, but too salty). Made pasta sauce and dried that. Made chili and dried that. Made lots of fruit leathers (my family's apple butter makes excellent fruit leathers, by the way). Dried a bunch of apples and blueberries and bananas will be tonight, I guess. We'll be eating better than we have on any camping trip before, that's for sure.

Other than that, our study is full of camping gear, ready to be packed, we've been washing clothes, trying to keep them all clean so that we don't have a pile of laundry to add to the pile of laundry I'm sure we'll bring home. Trying to get the house somewhat cleaned up too. Guess that will be tonight. I think we've got more than enough info on any area we might possibly go to. Other than the nights we're in hotels, everything is still really flexible (basically 7 days of camping/backpacking that we can do anywhere, within reason).

Even though we have a lot planned and there are a ton of places we're going to get to see, most of which I've never seen before, I'm most excited about seeing Holly. And beer, let's not forget the beer. ;]

Communication

I was silently thinking about something yesterday on the way home.

We fuck up communication by trying to use words.

[afterthought - Though I honestly couldn't think of a better system. Numbers maybe? I mean, how many ways can you interpret a number? But then I hate numbers and know enough other people that do (right vs. left brain thing) that I can't say that I'd advocate such a system (and that would just be pushing us that much closer to being machines).]

My thoughts jumped from that statement to what I read once about dream dictionaries and how each person should write their own because images, colors, people, events, settings, etc. all mean something different from person to person.

Likewise with words, I think. People hear you say one thing, and though it may mean the same thing to both of you generally, there are slight variations in the meaning, and therefore, things can potentially get really fucked up when they come out the other side (of course dependent upon the content and the persons involved).

It's complicated further when the person you're talking to isn't really listening, but instead is thinking things out in their own "language" in their heads (especially when they don't at all grasp the "language" you're using anyway). There's the problem that the person is thinking something entirely different because over the course of your entire relationship as humans interacting with each other, they've not been listening to you. Hearing you, perhaps, but not listening. When you're forced into a relationship with this sort of person (e.g. work relationship), things get really frustrating, really quickly. You get impatient from trying to explain things in every way you can possibly explain them (over and over) and they're still not listening.

I don't know how to fix this without altering personalities. I don't think I care enough to try to fix it. :]

1.5 more days, 12 more hours of work.